


Our Hell Is A Good Life

by solversonlou



Category: Westworld (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 18:15:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9135709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solversonlou/pseuds/solversonlou
Summary: Foolish really, Robert thinks, as his thumb strokes over the gold embossed lettering of  the black and white piece of card.A cordial invitation to the wedding of Arnold Weber and Lauren Davis.Foolish.Sequel tomy first ficof these two. Pre-Series, following the relationship between Ford and Arnold as Arnold marries and begins a new chapter in his life.  With feelings still remaining between the two of them, it's a difficult journey as their lives progress and their shared dream of the park unfolds and they're left dealing with what's to come.





	

Robert didn't know what he'd expected.

He'd foolishly thought that perhaps their shared history would stop this from happening. 

It didn't damage they dream that they shared, and it didn't change how Robert felt about him. (Nothing ever could. Arnold had buried himself in Robert's coding.) The situation was just the absolute opposite of ideal for him.

Foolish really, Robert thinks, as his thumb strokes over the gold embossed lettering of the black and white piece of card.

A cordial invitation to the wedding of Arnold Weber and Lauren Davis. 

_Foolish._

\- - -

They want him to write a speech. 

Robert had anticipated that the moment Arnold had told him he was getting engaged, casually dropping it in a conversation as if it wasn't a massive change to their narrative. 

He'd swallowed the words he'd wanted to speak and gave the older man a tight lipped smile, nodded and congratulated him, before shifting the subject back to their work. 

But now he's utterly, utterly furious. 

He snaps at Arnold when he approaches him about a fault with one of the hosts, tells him he should fix it himself instead of bothering him, after all, he's writing The Big Speech for Arnold's wedding, so he doesn't have time for writing narratives for hosts.

Arnold doesn't respond, taken aback by Robert's standoffish demeanour. He simply clears his throat and nods, though Robert guesses most of his lack of a response is because he notices, notices the crack in his voice when he'd yelled, notices the way Robert's eyes sting with the faintest of tears.

 _Good_ , Robert thinks, as he turns away from him. _You should feel guilty. I want you to remember this._

Robert finishes the speech within a couple of days, pulls a narrative from the stories they'd created, compares Lauren to a Shakespearean character and is done with it.

He thinks about Arnold standing in his wedding suit and it makes him feel sick.

\- - -

Lauren approaches Robert in the office he shares with her fiance.

"Robert," she smiles softly, eyes bright and warm, and Robert pities her. "I want to thank you for agreeing to be Arnold's best man. He said you'd written a speech as well?"

Another tight smile from Robert, this one showing no signs of vulnerability. (Why would he show it to her?) He places a hand on her arm, tilts his head and holds her eye with a warmth he did not possess. "Yes, I have. I thought it was the least I could do."

"That's incredibly kind of you," she looks so oblivious, so blissfully unaware, and there's a part of Robert that wants to destroy it, but he was never one for making a scene unless he'd planned it meticulously. "I know Arnold considers you more than just a partner. You've been an incredible friend to him."

The bittersweet taste is like acid on Robert's tongue as he swallows, lips growing tighter as his smile stretches. Voice low, Robert confirms her words. "Oh, I'd say we were much more than partners, yes. Arnold and I's bond very much transcends that."

There's no twinge of a question in Lauren's expression, no suspicion at Robert's choice of words. It would be funny to him if it wasn't so sad.

She thanks him again before bidding him goodbye.

What she doesn't know won't hurt her.

\- - -

“ _‘A good friend’_ , she called me,” Robert chuckles from behind his glass, the quirk of his lips shifting back into a straight line as he mulls the words over in his head. 

The look on his face ties Arnold’s stomach in knots.

“Tell me, Arnold, would you have told her of me had I been a woman?” Robert shifts his ankle from one knee to the other, his half empty whisky perched on his thigh. 

He looks like a goddamn chat show host grilling a fallen starlet and it fills Arnold with such a sense of discomfort that he can’t even bring himself to look at him.

“No,” Arnold responds quietly, as if the words are something secret, as if they weren’t both aware of exactly what had happened between them for the past six years.

“No, I don’t quite think I believe that, Arnold,” Robert trails off, eyes gazing towards the bottle of whisky on his desk. Had he been a host in one of their stories, a lover scorned, he’d have taken the bottle and smashed it over Arnold’s head. 

He wasn’t so ghoulish, of course.

“What we had…” Arnold begins to say, lifting his face to meet Robert’s eye again, but he’s cut off by Robert’s voice, snapping through the air.

“And what was that?” 

Arnold’s eyes widen at the sudden volume of Robert’s voice. He’d heard it before, next to his own bellowing during some of their rare but passionate arguments. It’d only happened once or twice, but it was a tone Arnold could not forget.

Robert’s jaw clenches slowly as he holds Arnold’s eye, chin lifting in a show of defiance. He can’t let himself be vulnerable, but Arnold always had a way of bringing that out of him.

“What was that?” The words repeat on Robert’s lips, softer this time, tinged with a bitter sadness that makes Arnold’s chest ache. “What was it when you used to tell me back when we first met that you’d never met someone as fascinating as me?”

Arnold remembers it well, Robert’s young, eager eyes and the way he spoke with an intelligence that Arnold hadn’t encountered in anyone else. Fascinating, he certainly was. 

He should speak, tell Robert to stop, but he doesn’t. He can’t. Robert needs this, and in some sad way, Arnold needs it too.

Robert’s cheek twitches, a momentary frown as his words get caught and a sob threatens to wreck him. He manages to hold it back, he wants Arnold to hear exactly what he has to say to him.

“What was it when I came to you that evening in this very lab and we drank your favourite wine? Was it nothing when you kissed me? When you rutted up against me against this very desk? What about the times after that?” Robert swallows, leaning back in his chair as his hands settle on the arms. 

He inhales sharply, eyes closing to stop the tears stinging his eyes from falling. When he opens them again, Arnold is looking at him with a face twisted into a pained frown, his own gaze brimming with tears.

Voice shaky, Robert doesn’t give up. “When you took me all those times in your bed, this lab, the library in my childhood home with my father mere rooms away. Was that meaningless? Just a blip in your narrative? A fatal error you erased?”

“No!” Arnold’s voice cuts through Robert’s words and it’s so sudden that it takes them both aback, Robert’s breath catching in his throat. Arnold bites the inside of his bottom lip, his face contorting in sadness once more. “You know it wasn’t nothing, but I can’t do it, Robert! We can’t do it! It would break it all, it’d ruin our dreams!”

They sit there for a moment, the silence louder than any shouting the two of them could muster.

And then Robert is sighing, head bowing as a tear trails down his cheek. He wipes it away with a thumb, chuckles bitterly. He’s got nothing to lose now, so he speaks, says something he should have said months ago, or perhaps never at all. “I love you.”

Silence again. Robert’s eyes are screwed shut as if opening them would make everything around them become too real. For a moment, he can remain frozen like this, teetering on the edge of whatever comes next, like the kick before a fall.

He doesn’t expect to feel a hand, gentle and warm, cupping the back of his head. 

Arnold stands before him, looking down at his sad, sad features, a mirror of pain on his own face. His fingers trail the line of Robert’s cheek, drag down his jaw before taking his chin between forefinger and thumb.

Robert’s body rises with muscle memory, though his feet feel fake beneath him. He searches Arnold’s face for an answer, but all he gets are sad eyes and a mouth pressed into a straight line.

Robert kisses him for the first time in close to a year, lips brushing lightly over Arnold’s before he’s kissing back, blunt nails digging into the nape of Robert’s neck.

Robert’s hands fly to Arnold’s waist, pulling him close as their bodies align, neurons firing off sparks in their brains, muscles aching for touch.

Just as soon as the kiss begins, it ends, Arnold tearing away from Robert like ripping off a band-aid. 

Robert searches, desperate for Arnold’s mouth again, but he’s met by the press of Arnold’s forehead against the bridge of his nose, stopping him from letting it happen.

“I love you,” Arnold exhales, fingers gripping the lapels of Robert’s waistcoat, knuckles turned white. Robert feels the skin on Arnold’s face shifting, the pressure of his forehead against his own changing as Arnold shakes his head slowly. “But I can’t. We can’t.”

Robert’s hands clench hard against Arnold’s sides, but it’s not enough. He slips from beneath his fingers and the weightless space where he’d been feels like a hole in Robert’s very core.

He has the gall, at least, to look Robert in the eye before he leaves, before he walks out. “Please know that this is hurting me as much as it is you.”

The spilled drink on the floor from where Robert had been lifted from his seat; glass having tumbled across the ground; he stares at it with clenched fists and a closed mouth filled with curses.

Robert hopes he slips on it and breaks his neck.

\- - -

The wedding is beautiful.

Of course it is. 

Lauren positively glows as she floats down the aisle, shrouded by a white veil. 

Arnold’s smile is so bright that it makes Robert want to knock his teeth out.

He doesn’t object when the priest asks. He isn’t that dramatic. Isn’t that petty.

After all, this was the life Arnold needed. 

When the ceremony ends and the guests are in their seats, Robert delivers a speech so convincing that even Laurence Olivier would weep. 

He toasts the bride and groom, lips stretching over teeth, but his eyes are fixed on Arnold’s, boring into him. It’s the first time he’s addressed him in weeks.

Robert doesn’t take pride in the fact that Arnold’s plastered on smile falters when he mentions just how much his friendship means to him. He certainly doesn’t take pleasure in how Arnold leans towards Lauren, presses a tight lipped kiss to her cheek, a distraction from the truth that lies beneath Robert’s speech.

“To Arnold,” Robert says, tipping his glass towards the bride and groom. “Starting his new dream with his wonderful wife. Congratulations.”

Arnold’s caught in his gaze when they drink down the champagne, eyes staring over the rim of the glass. 

He looks as if he wants to scream.

\- - -

It takes months for them to get back to talking properly. 

They discuss work mainly, Robert showing him his new designs, and Arnold’s response is usually either a tight nod of approval or quick words of disagreement that turn into tense, quiet arguments.

Robert tries not to take it as a personal slant when Arnold disagrees with him, but it’s difficult, incredibly so. 

Arnold balances his life with work and his wife. He doesn’t drink with Robert anymore. 

They haven’t quite reached that yet, but he chuckles one day when Robert makes a dry, sarcastic quip to one of their employees. 

It reignites the spark in Robert’s chest, if only a little.

\- - -

Lauren announces her pregnancy seven months into the marriage. 

She hadn’t shown much before that, but Robert had guessed three months ago when she’d visited the lab and refused a tuna sandwich, claiming that it made her feel ill. 

They’d served tuna at the wedding, Robert recalls, and he puts the pieces together. He doesn’t mention it.

“Congratulations,” is what he tells her when she comes in after Arnold had casually mentioned it in conversation. (Robert had been speechless momentarily, stomach dropping, but he’d swallowed his pride and smiled, congratulated him too.) “What a wonderful gift for you both.”

\- - -

She comes to him again afternoon, separate from Arnold this time, and asks Robert something he hadn't expected her to.

"He's reluctant to ask for God knows what reason, but both of us would love it if you'd agree," Lauren's eyes are bright, full of hope. "Neither of us have many male relatives, you being the godfather would be perfect."

He knows that politely declining would probably be the best course of action, for him and Arnold's sake, at least, but Lauren's suspicions cannot be aroused.

"Of course," is what he says, patting the hand placed on his arm, smiling warmly at the woman who looks almost relieved as well as giddy at his blessing.

"Thank you," she squeezes his arm. "Arnold will be thrilled."

\- - -

Arnold isn't angry, much to Robert's surprise.

He's not comfortable with the idea, but he rationalises that perhaps this is a way of moving forward.

Robert can sense the discomfort in the smile Arnold gives him when they're stood in the lounge of Arnold and Lauren's home, a small get together for the mother to be.

He holds a glass of wine in his hand, Arnold's favourite. (The one he'd tasted on Arnold's lips in the lab a couple of years ago, the one Robert drinks by himself now, when he's alone in his office in the early hours of morning.)

"Thank you," Arnold says when they're alone in his home office, the rest of the guests being entertained by Lauren in the lounge. "What you did for her, it's honourable."

Honourable. What a bitter taste that leaves in Robert's mouth. 

He doesn't pick an argument, he won't, but he won't let him pretend their whole situation isn't a mess.

"Yes, well I didn't do it for you," Robert says, rather matter-of-factly. He's sat on the arm of the leather chair in the corner as Arnold goes through his record collection for something to play to their guests. (Lauren's late father's favourite song. She wants the baby to hear it before he's born.)

Arnold stops mid-search, and Robert can hear the exhale that leaves him, even with Arnold's back to him and being across the room. 

Shaking his head, Arnold chuckles, and Robert quirks an eyebrow at it. "I don't think we've done much beyond working together lately. I have to say, I hadn't expected you to become so friendly with Lauren."

"Oh," Robert smiles, and Arnold sees it when he twists around to look at him. Robert's eyes shift from Arnold to the floor, gazing in thought for a moment. "Oh, no, we're not friends, Arnold. Though the thought is quite touching, isn't it? But, no, that'll never be."

Arnold's brow furrows as he shifts in his hunched position, unable to respond to Robert's blunt words. 

Turning back to his records, Arnold runs a thumb across the sleeve of one. It's one of Robert's favourites, a Chopin piece, buried among the jazz and classic rock 'n' roll that make up the rest of his and Lauren's collection. 

He skips over the record, finds the one he'd been looking for in the first place. 

"Here it is," Arnold breaks the silence, tucking the record under his arm. Rising to his feet, he doesn't look directly at Robert, just makes his way towards the door. "They'll be wondering where we got to."

Robert wants to grab Arnold's wrist, pull him in by his sleeve and tell him to forget them all. Damn them, and damn your poor, clueless, wife. Just stay.

But he doesn't. 

Robert follows Arnold back into the lounge instead, swallows the last of his wine and stands and listens to 'Smile' by Nat King Cole, a cover from Lauren's father's favourite Charlie Chaplin film.

\- - -

They name the boy Charlie. Fitting, really. His late grandfather's favourite star.

Arnold is absent for a few weeks, settling in with the baby at home, updating Ford in the moments he gets by himself.

"The hosts will still be here when you return, Arnold," Robert tells him, over the phone as he fixes a cut cheek one of Arnold's creations. He'd been testing her reaction to mild pain, and her reaction was to scream at the top of her mechanical lungs and pass out. He's adamant on fixing such an error.

Smiling as as he paints over the wound, Robert can just imagine the sight of Arnold reclining in his arm chair, baby Charlie asleep on his chest, his glasses balanced on the tip of his nose. 

Robert's eyes gaze towards the floor momentarily, smile faltering slightly.

Shaking himself of the tinges of sadness, he draws his attention back to his work. "I have your favourite host with me now, actually. I would put her on the phone with you, but she seems to scream whenever I bring her back online. It's an odd bug, but I'm working on it."

"Molly?" Arnold ponders on the other end of the line, and Robert confirms with an affirmative hum. "She's in good hands, at least. I'm very fond of her."

"As is every man with a pulse in our employment," Robert says, a tinge of disapproval underlying his tone. Though, he was never fond of the female human form in that way, beyond artistic appreciation anyway. "Oh, and Doctor Anderson. She implied I make Molly's assets a little more pronounced."

Arnold chuckles through the speaker of the phone, and the sound of it warms Robert's chest in a way it hasn't done in months. It's followed by that twinge of sadness yet again, and Robert wonders if it was worth it to be on speaking terms if all it resulted in was that feeling.

"Charlie is stirring," Arnold says, the sound of quiet babbling underneath his voice. He shushes at his baby, and Robert's stomach ties in knots. "I should go before Lauren complains about me not putting him in his crib again."

There's a pause for a moment, the faint sound of Arnold's knees cracking and the chair moving as he stands up, and then he's speaking again. "I'll be back in a few days. I trust you'll have Molly up and running by then? I've been thinking of trying out a new narrative for her."

Robert smiles, throat feeling tight when he responds. "Yes, of course. I'll see you soon, Arnold."

When the phonecall ends, Robert stares distantly into Molly's hazel eyes for a solid three minutes.

\- - -

It's ridiculous, really, this subconscious display of peacocking. 

Or is it conscious if Robert is hyper-aware of the discomfort he feels when his employees' eyes widen at the sight of him walking through their working space?

They're so used to the black waistcoats and black slacks and ties, so it's odd seeing their boss in a deep burgundy. It's essentially the same attire, just tinged a different colour. 

His tie is navy, and Doctor Anderson is the only one of his employees brave enough to mention it, complimenting him on it as she wiggles her own paisley green bow tie with her fingers.

He smiles, tight lipped and nods sharply, wordless as he passes her and makes his way towards Arnold's office. 

Two quick knocks and Arnold is telling him to come in.

"Robert," Arnold says without looking up, aware of his intended arrival from a previous message sent to him a few minutes before. When he does look up, he pauses momentarily, eyes flicking up and down Robert quickly, before he's clearing his throat and pushing his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. "It's good to see you again."

Robert knows it's utterly inappropriate to be excited by the way Arnold had reacted to his entrance and appearance, but it gives him such a sense of enormous pride that he's a little embarrassed by it, cheeks growing warm.

"It's good to have you back. I do hope you've managed to get some well needed rest," Robert's lips curl up into a smile and he walks towards Arnold's desk with a tablet tucked under his arm. "I have some new codes I'd like for you to look at. And perhaps you can tell me about that new narrative you have planned for Molly?"

It's all quite a lot all at once, and Arnold tells him this with a chuckle, taking the tablet that Robert offers him, his knuckles bumping against his fingers lightly. (If Robert wasn't so momentarily full of himself, he might not read into it as much as he does.)

Robert sits on the edge of Arnold's desk, just like he used to back in the earlier stages of their partnership. (Back when Arnold's eyes would linger on Robert's thighs draped over the glass, and Robert would stare at the line of Arnold's back when he was bending over the desk to look over plans.)

It's as if the past four months are wiped, gone from their narrative, and Robert knows it's only temporary, but he hopes the feeling lasts as long as possible. 

Arnold would be lying if he said he didn't hope it too.

\- - -

Milestones come and go, both good and bad.

Molly is recycled when she injures a behaviour analysist. The woman will recover, but they cannot allow that sort of mistake to happen again, or worse, get out to the general public.

Nobody is much aware of their project yet, beyond the fundees, the biggest one being Robert's father. 

He's a reluctant funder, really, telling Robert that he understands his motivations, but worries that there may be people who'd wish to create life out of his and Arnold's creations.

Robert brushes off the idea, tells his father that he wouldn't let others do something so immoral.

His father simply mutters and drinks and leaves Robert feeling the same way he did years before as a child.

\- - - 

Robert's father passes away when Charlie turns three years old.

Robert doesn't cry, not like when he did when his mother died, or his older brother in a tragic accident years before. He does, however, grow distant, locking himself away in his office for a few days.

Arnold had respected Robert's father immensely, considered him a great mind, although lost a little due to early onset dementia. 

Lauren doesn't understand why Arnold's reaction to it is to start designing hosts, copies of Robert's family, a gift.

"It's strange, Arnold," she frowns, shuffling through the designs laid out on their kitchen table. Charlie is toddling around the room, and Lauren makes sure to speak quietly but firmly, to stop their son from noticing the tense atmosphere. "Building replicas of the dead? It's ghastly."

Arnold doesn't want to start a fight, but his guilt has been festering up inside of him for months, usually after spending time with Robert, and he takes it out on her. (She doesn't deserve it. She doesn't deserve any of the things he keeps from her.)

She tells him after he's done ranting that perhaps it'd be better if she spent the night on the couch. He tells her he'll do better.

He leaves the house an hour later with the plans tucked under his arm and a bottle of his favourite wine in the passenger seat of his car. 

He isn't going to tell Robert about the hosts, that would ruin the surprise, but he needs someone to sit with, if only in silence, needs a distraction.

He'll think about pushing Robert up against the door of his office, getting a knee settled between his legs and how Robert would gasp and rut up against him. He'll think about Robert's thighs wrapped around his waist, his cock heavy and flushed up against Arnold's stomach as Arnold would move inside him.

He'll think about it, but he won't do it.

\- - -

Robert's apartment is far from modern. 

It suits that of a man of his father's generation, dark wooden bookcases and non-linear lines. The most modern part of it is the technology, tablets and screens and mechanical parts to the hosts.

He's drinking scotch, listening to Chopin, and working on plans for the park when there's a knock at his door.

Arnold has been here before, but it feels odd having him here now, stood on his doorstep looking disheveled.

Robert doesn't say anything, but he appears surprised by Arnold's presence, eyes widening slightly as Arnold mutters something about needing some company and time to himself and Robert steps back to let him inside.

They don't speak, not initially. Robert watches Arnold shuffle across his living room, tossing his tablet and a screw-top bottle of wine carelessly down on the couch before shrugging his jacket off his shoulders and abandoning it alongside his items.

Robert's brows draw together at the sight of Arnold who's festering an underlying anger that he won't express with words or details. Robert wonders if he should ask him what the matter is, but he had guessed it was something to do with Lauren when he first saw him through the peephole of his door. (He shouldn't have felt a stir of excitement at the idea of an argument between the couple, but he had done regardless.)

"Do you want to discuss work?" Is what Robert asks him, pulling his navy dressing robe tighter around himself. 

Arnold frowns, looks Robert over as he slumps down on the couch. He hadn't realised how late it was. He probably should have phoned. Swallowing, he drags his gaze away from the slither of skin below Robert's exposed collarbone. "No... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come."

"It's quite alright," Robert tries not to sound too eager, stepping forward instinctively, hand reaching out to stop Arnold in case he considered leaving. He lowers his hand when he realises that Arnold is very much staying put. "I can't say that I've watched television in quite some time, perhaps it'll be a worthy distraction from whatever it is that brought you here."

Arnold lets out a long exhale, shifting to sit up straighter, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. 

His mouth twitches into a warm, half-smile as he looks up at Robert, who returns the gesture. (It's the first time Robert has smiled since his father passed, Arnold notes.) "I think that'll be just fine. I do miss your commentary on benign story arcs."

Robert chuckles as he makes his way over to the couch. "They do write an awful lot of them."

\- - -

Arnold presents the hosts to Robert four months later. 

It'd taken a lot of time and utmost secrecy to not have Robert become aware of it, but it had been worth it, at least in Arnold's eyes.

Robert's breath leaves him when he steps into the small house located somewhere off the grid of the slowly blossoming park. It isn't an exact replica of his childhood home, but it's close. 

Arnold watches Robert's reaction with bright eyes, a smile plastered on his face as Robert studies their surroundings with a reserved but ever present awe.

Robert doesn't say anything, too taken aback by the generosity of Arnold's gift. 

He observes the hosts, how they maneuver around the house, his mother's image matched, timid and quiet as she washes pots in the sink. His older brother sits and reads, his father poking at the fireplace. And then there's him, smaller and lighter haired, tinkering with a broken apart clock on the coffee table.

"I figured you would need somewhere to escape to when the park is open," Arnold explains, pressing buttons on his tablet to freeze the motor functions of the hosts. "Only you and I will know about this place, of course. Guests won't be allowed here, nor will our employees. Hell, I won't even come here. It's yours."

When Arnold looks up, Robert is turning to face him with a warm, touched smile, bright eyes brimming with tears. 

It's a stark contrast to the hurt displayed all those months ago, back in their lab after their confessions.

"Thank you," Robert says, and before Arnold realises it, Robert's arms are wrapping around his shoulders and the younger man is leaning into his chest, letting out a breathless laugh.

Arnold chuckles, the sound of it vibrating through Robert's rib cage as he places his hands on his back, drawing his body closer in the embrace. 

It only lasts a moment or two, but Arnold's fingers linger at the space between Robert's shoulder blades, and Robert's wrists hang off Arnold's shoulders for a few seconds as they pull apart.

Arnold clears his throat, shuffles on his feet as he looks back towards his tablet, and Robert returns his attention to the hosts.

"Thank you," Robert repeats, surveying the scene before him with a fondness in his heart that rivals anything he's ever felt before. 

How impossibly thoughtful, he thinks. Would Arnold do such a thing for her? 

Robert smiles a little brighter, if possible. "I can't imagine how I could possibly repay you."

\- - - 

Charlie gets sick when he turns six-years-old.

Arnold tries so desperately to hold it together, to be strong for him, and for Lauren.

It's difficult. 

Lauren has always been more positive than him, always able to hold it together better. She kisses Charlie's forehead and strokes a stray curl from his brow, tells him that everything is going to be okay. She doesn't cry, not in front of him at least. Arnold is resentful of her for it, though he knows it's not her fault.

He's teary eyed when he speaks to his son, trying to reiterate his wife's words, but never sounding quite so convincing. 

It breaks his heart, seeing his boy being prodded and tested on like one of their hosts, as if he couldn't feel the needles pricking his skin.

\- - - 

"Consciousness?" Robert cocks his head to the side, confusion written in his expression. "We've discussed what exactly consciousness is before, Arnold. Several theories. You said that we cannot define it as it does not exist."

"Perhaps I was wrong," Arnold says, sketching out lines on his notebook. He should be at the hospital with Charlie, but he's here, erratically coming up with theories and talking about philosophy. "Perhaps the true key to consciousness is a pyramid."

"A pyramid?" Robert can't help being intrigued, but his concern for Arnold's well-being overrides that. He approaches him slowly, places a hand on his shoulder. "Arnold, perhaps you should get some rest? I'm sure Charlie would like to see you alert when he wakes up."

Arnold stiffens beneath Robert's touch, his back turned to him in his position leaned over his desk. His breath is shaky when he sighs, head bowing as his eyes slide shut, the paper in his fingers crumpling. "I will... I just need to get some thoughts out first. This could be groundbreaking."

"I know," Robert says, squeezing Arnold's shoulder, feeling it loosen up slowly beneath the weight of his hand. He rubs circles into the muscle beneath Arnold's jacket. "And I'll be all ears once you get some rest and see your son."

Nodding, Arnold pulls out of Robert's touch. 

He's right, of course he is.

\- - - 

Alice In Wonderland is a comfort for them both as Charlie grows weaker.

Charlie still manages to be so smart, so inquisitive as his father reads to him at his bedside.

Lauren occasionally will sit in, despite the distance growing between her and her husband. She needs to be there for him, just as much as Arnold does. 

There's a bittersweet feeling in her chest when she hears Arnold say something and the bubbly laughter of their son, still so full of life despite his own slipping away with each passing day.

Arnold barely speaks to her. He barely speaks to anyone who isn't Charlie.

Occasionally he'll pick up the phone, ring Robert and discuss the revelations he's had whilst reading Alice. ( _The rabbit hole. The journey of self discovery. Consciousness._ )

Robert tells him to stop overanalysing everything.

Lauren observes her husband on the phone with him and it leaves her already empty chest feeling somehow emptier.

\- - - 

"Are you joking?!" Arnold doesn't want to shout, his throat already hoarse from crying and reading to Charlie. 

He's stood in the lounge he's shared with his wife for the past seven years, the home he'd built with her. 

"Why would I be kidding, Arnold?" Lauren doesn't sound angry, just exhausted. She's sat on the couch, drying her hair off from the shower they both had desperately needed after days spent in the hospital. "It's obvious you no longer feel the same way about me."

"What are you talking about?" Arnold shakes his head, a show of disbelief. Deep down, somewhere in his core, he can't dispute his wife's words, but he wants to, wants to make sense of and fix this crumbling mess. "I've just been distracted... Charlie. God, our boy, Lauren. He's sick."

"You think I don't know that?!" Lauren's voice raises for the first time it has in what must be years. She closes her eyes as if shocked by herself, shoulders sinking as she lets out a long sigh. Her voice is quieter when she speaks, and Arnold listens with a hollow feeling in his stomach. "It was like this before Charlie. I loved you, Arnold. I still do, and I know you loved me too, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough, never the same."

Arnold swallows the dry lump in his throat, shifts on his feet. "The same as what?"

Lauren looks up at him, and it's enough for him to guess what she means, but she won't say it. Instead, she runs her fingers through her damp curls, sighs again. "Just never the same as I loved you."

Arnold can't say anything. He did love her. He does. She wasn't lying when she'd said that, and neither was he, but she's right. It wasn't enough.

"We don't have to tell Charlie," Lauren says after a long silence that indicates Arnold isn't going to respond. "We owe him some sense of happiness before he's gone."

She's crying now, and Arnold would say that he'd wrap her in his arms if it was a few months ago, but he'd be lying.

It's cruel of him, but she doesn't want it anyway.

He remains where he is instead. "Okay."

\- - - 

Arnold's drunk. He's drunk and he's at Robert's door again. 

Robert doesn't have a chance to say anything before Arnold's mouth is upon his and he's pressing him up against a bookshelf in his hallway, the taste of wine on his lips, broad palms pushing against his shoulders.

He allows it to happen for a moment, the wanting from all those years catching up with him. Arnold's beard scratches against his face, his breath hot in his mouth, and it lifts Robert off his feet. 

He can't allow it, though. Not like this.

"Arnold," Robert pulls away from his mouth, head turning to the side, and Arnold's bleary eyes blink at him, wordless. "Arnold, you're drunk."

Arnold leans back a little, fingers clasping the front of Robert's robe. It's burgundy this time, the same shade as the suit he'd worn when Arnold had returned to the lab after Charlie was born. Robert looks at him straight on, eyes dragging over his disheveled appearance. It breaks his heart.

"It's over," Arnold says, as if Robert's supposed to understand what he means, and as if it justifies the situation. He cranes his neck forward, but is met by the side of Robert's cheek again and the press of a hand against his chest.

"Arnold," Robert's tone is a low warning. "Not now."

Arnold gets the message, fingers releasing their hold on Robert's robe. He stumbles a little as he steps backwards, and Robert steadies him with an arm around his waist.

"I'm sorry," Arnold chokes back a broken sob as he leans half his weight against Robert, wobbles on his feet as Robert guides him into the living room towards the couch. "I'm so sorry."

Robert has a slight idea of what Arnold is talking about, but he isn't sure. He lowers him down onto the couch, sits down next to him with his arm still wrapped around his waist. 

"It's quite alright," Robert reassures him, his other hand moving to adjust Arnold's askew glasses on his nose. 

Even in his blurry vision, Arnold can see the soft, sad smile on Robert's face. 

"I'll get you some water and we'll sober you up, shall we?" Robert is so attentive towards him, even after all this time, after how poorly Arnold believes he's treated him. 

When he moves to pull away, Arnold's fingers grab his wrist, and Robert blinks down at him, takes in the sight of his teary eyes and the lines of pain written on his face. "She left me."

It takes a second for it to sink in. Robert remains silent, swallows the lump that rises in his throat. He's aware, immensely so, of the thump of his own heart in his ears. Finally. He thinks. Good for her. Even better for himself.

It's selfish and cruel, but Robert can't help it. 

Pulling his wrist out of Arnold's grip, he moves his fingers to cup the back of Arnold's neck. Slowly, he leans down, presses his lips gently to Arnold's temple. "Let's get you that water."

\- - -

When Robert wakes up in his armchair, Arnold is no longer there.

He doesn't know what he'd expected. 

There's a sinking feeling in his chest when he realises that perhaps Arnold was lying about Lauren. 

Perhaps it was his guilt speaking, apologising after he'd stolen a kiss from him and betrayed her.

Robert gets dressed and tries not to think about it on the way to the lab.

\- - - 

He doesn't realise Arnold is there until halfway through the day. 

The park is close to completion, and Robert has dreamed about it for so long that he can't quite believe just how soon it will come.

There's a bitter-sweetness to it, of course. Arnold had been so distracted by Charlie and his newfound obsession of consciousness to be as involved as he used to. 

Robert didn't blame him for the former part, of course, but it'd been their dream. It had been the reason for their partnership in the very first place. It'd been theirs, along with the mess of whatever feelings had come with it.

He excuses himself from the Westworld partners during yet another surveillance of the hosts and the park, returning to his office and the elevator that's located just off from it, hidden to everyone but himself and Arnold.

The house is still there, located off the grid. Robert has come to it often since Arnold had gifted it to him. 

When he enters, the hosts of his family are offline. Odd, considering he'd left them active the last time he'd been there a few days before.

It's then when he notices the door to the basement, open as if it were waiting for his arrival. 

He finds Arnold down there, sitting at a table, scribbling furiously in his notebooks. 

"Arnold?" Robert's voice echoes in the near empty space, void of everything but a desk and four glass walls contained within the concrete. A temporary room for analysing the hosts of Robert's family if anything were to go wrong. "I should have known I'd find you here."

Arnold closes his notes as Robert approaches, twisting around in his chair to face him. "Charlie gave me permission to work for a while. He said we can finish Alice tomorrow."

The corners of Robert's eyes crinkle as he smiles and moves closer to the desk, takes a seat on the empty space of the metal besides Arnold's notes. "That was kind of him. I suspect Lauren gave her blessing too?"

"Ah," Arnold's gaze drops to his shoes. "I don't suspect I'll be needing that much anymore."

Robert swallows, that same quickening of his heart from last night returning. Arnold must remember, then. He can't mask his eagerness when he asks him. "You said that she left?"

"Divorce," Arnold says, looking back up at Robert with a small, sad smile. His eyes cast about his face, taking in the lines and angles of the man he'd spent so much time pointlessly pining after. He'd denied himself so much, fear of being selfish. He was selfish. There was no denying it. 

There's some twisted part of Robert that wants to push Arnold for more answers, wants him to tell him about how she could never compare. He won't do that, though. Instead, he apologises. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"You're not," Arnold says, and perhaps it's a little blunt, but it's honest. Perhaps Robert is sorry, sorry for Lauren who never deserved any of this, but he's not sorry for himself. "It's okay, though."

Robert nods, slowly and wordless, and when he moves to stand, Arnold's fingers meet his wrist as they had done the night before. 

Only, Arnold isn't drunk, and Robert isn't confused. 

Rising to his feet, Arnold strokes a calloused thumb across Robert's pulse point, eyes dragging to his mouth, and Robert's eyes do the same. 

Robert's hand meets Arnold's cheek as he leans towards him, presses a soft kiss to his bottom lip. He pulls back slightly, awaits a response, breath caught in his throat. It's breathed out through his nose when Arnold tugs him closer, their mouths crashing together.

Robert responds immediately to the touch, palms cupping Arnold's face, thumbs pressed against his jaw as Arnold mouths at the seam of his lips. 

They've waited far too long for this, they both think that as they move together, Robert's teeth tugging at Arnold's bottom lip, Arnold's tongue pressing into Robert's mouth and swallowing the moan that leaves him.

Clothes are removed in an initially careful, methodical pace, until they both grow impatient and Robert is unbuckling Arnold's belt with eager fingers that wrap around his already half-hard cock. 

Arnold gasps against Robert's mouth, their foreheads craning together as his hands map out the expanse of Robert's bare torso. He's so pale still, despite the desert sun, blames it on his English blood.

Arnold's mouth sucks patches into the flesh, his hand moving to the front of Robert's slacks. They arch together, knuckles bumping as Arnold takes ahold of Robert's cock and mirrors his movements. 

There isn't anywhere comfortable in the basement for this, so Arnold opts for lifting Robert up on the desk, his notes and papers falling to the floor with the weight of him. 

The cold metal sends a shiver through him, and he laughs, breathless, and Arnold laughs too, forehead pressed to Robert's chest before they're stripping off their remaining clothes.

It's safe out here, away from prying eyes and their partners, away from everything but the two of them.

It's as if the lineage of time grinds to a halt, and Robert can kiss Arnold for as long as he wants, and Arnold can spend much needed time and attention on working Robert open with spit slicked fingers.

It's not entirely ideal, but it works. Robert settles himself on Arnold's cock slowly, arms looped around his neck, as he balances himself up on the desk, making it as easy as he can for the both of them.

His blunt nails dig into the nape of Arnold's neck as Arnold moves inside him, hips snapping up against him, the sound of skin hitting skin ringing through the air. 

Robert's face finds itself pressed into the space between Arnold's neck and shoulder, mouth speaking obscenities against his flesh as he rocks down against him. It's a familiar sensation, even after not having it for so long. 

"I love you," Arnold says it so quietly initially that Robert thinks he's imagined it. It isn't until Arnold's chin is tucked over his shoulder that he hears it properly, uttered over and over as Robert's thighs tremble around Arnold's waist. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

They move together for what feels like the longest time, but it isn't long until Arnold is coming, lifting off the balls of his feet as his hips snap in short, circular motions and Robert groans at the flood of heat that releases inside of him. 

Arnold grunts against Robert's collarbones lips pressed to his skin as his fingers curl around Robert's cock, bringing him closer and closer, until Robert is coming also, gasping Arnold's name alongside it.

Arnold helps lift him off of the desk, despite the mess and despite the trembling of their legs. 

They cling onto each other, catching their breaths, and Robert is painfully aware of how terribly unsafe that was, but there's a larger part of him that simply does not care.

He kisses the corner of Arnold's mouth, fingers trailing slowly down his sides as Arnold's hands curl around the curve of Robert's behind, pull him close until their bodies are aligned.

"I do too, by the way," Robert says, resting his forehead against Arnold's. It's cliché, he supposes, but it speaks the truth. He sounds so gentle, vulnerable as he strokes a thumb over a patch of Arnold's beard. "I never stopped, not even once."

For the first time in a long time, Arnold doesn't feel empty.

\- - -

"The partners will be wondering where I got to," Robert says, an hour or so later. He's sat with a towel wrapped around his waist, skin pink and damp from the bath he'd drawn in the small bathroom of the host house.

They'd shut the doors to the lounge, despite knowing the hosts were offline and not even able to be bothered by such things as sins of the flesh. Arnold is more bothered by the idea of it than Robert, though he can understand the oddness of being nude in front of a replica of his father.

"I should get back to the hospital," Arnold says, drying off his own skin. He's fuller than Robert, although he's been looking a little thinner since Charlie had gotten sick.

Arnold watches Robert's reflection in the mirror above the sink, watching as he moves towards him. 

He smiles when Robert's arms circle his waist and he presses a kiss to his bare shoulder.

Arnold wonders what he meant back when he said they could never work, and doesn't understand himself at all.

\- - -

His heart feels as if it drops out of his stomach when he gets back to the lab.

Twelve messages, all from Lauren's number.

The first few are voice messages, panicked and shouting, the urgency in her voice making bile rise in Arnold's throat.

The next are all text: CHARLIE TAKEN TURN FOR WORSE. WHERE ARE YOU?

He rushes out of the labs, rings in a small tram car to take him out of the place immediately.

He doesn't remember much of the journey, it's all a blur of fear and the sound of his heart thumping in his ears.

\- - -

Lauren's sobbing when he arrives, face pressed to her sister's chest, and Arnold's world crumbles beneath his feet.

The gasps that leave him, heaving as tears fall down his cheeks, draw her attention towards his presence, and as soon as Lauren looks up, she sees red.

"You son of a bitch, where were you?!" She tears herself away from her sister's arms, storms over to her husband-- ex husband-- and grabs him by the lapels of his jacket, shakes him. "Our boy almost died and you weren't there!"

"I didn't know! I didn't know!" Arnold babbles through his sobs, before Lauren's latter words sink in. Almost died. He frowns, confusion among the distraught. "He's alive?"

"Yes," Lauren exclaims, still furious with Arnold, but too tired to yell anymore. She's exhausted and it shows as she slumps and sighs, letting go of her grip on Arnold's jacket. "He's okay."

A flood of relief washes over Arnold, but it doesn't erase the guilt gnawing away at him. He closes his eyes, tries to adjust to the shift in gear, before speaking again. "I need to see him."

He looks so small and pale, lying in the hospital bed with his teddy bear tucked under the sheets besides him. The bandage on the top of his skull is a stark reminder of everything he's been through, and Arnold has to stop to remember to breathe for a second. 

"Dad?" Charlie smiles weakly, lifting his head up from the pillows. 

Arnold smiles back at him, heart lifting at the sight of him awake. Always so positive, even when faced with such hardship. Arnold wonders if he could ever be half as strong as that. 

"Don't wear yourself out, son," Arnold sits down next to his bed, places a hand atop his head. "I heard you were very brave today."

"I dunno what happened," Charlie says, and it sounds like an admission. He sighs, leans his head into his father's gentle touch. "Can you read to me?"

Arnold's smile grows wider, along with the pit of guilt in his stomach. Picking up the familiar book with the red cover, he opens it to the bookmarked page.

\- - -

The plans in Arnold's notebook are for a new host.

It's odd, they needn't make any more hosts. 

All of the roles had been filled for now, the park scheduled to open in less than six months. 

Dolores, it reads. _Dolores._ A young white woman with light hair.

Robert makes a note to ask Arnold about it later.

\- - -

Robert has every intention of asking Arnold about Dolores, but Arnold doesn't come to work the following day, nor does he return to his apartment, or to Robert's.

He doesn't find him in the host house either. 

The only place left is the hospital, and Robert is aware that perhaps him barging in there to discuss secret hosts isn't such a good idea.

He leaves it be, tries not to concern himself or worry when Arnold doesn't get in touch with him, but there's a part of him that aches whenever his phone rings, or when the door to his office is knocked upon.

Arnold will be fine. 

\- - -

"He almost died, Robert," Arnold's tone is distant as he sits in the lab, unable to meet Robert's eye. "I was too busy with you and he almost died without me there with him."

Robert knows it's selfish, but his chest sinks at Arnold's words. He's hurting, it's understandable, but he doesn't have to be so cruel, act as if Robert were the cause of Charlie's sickness all together.

"You couldn't have known," Robert tries to reason, but he's met by Arnold rebuking him immediately.

"I should!" Arnold yells, and it makes Robert flinch, eyes sliding shut. Arnold withdraws, buries his face in his hands. "I should have known."

Robert sits with him for a while in silence. He wants so desperately to reach out and take Arnold's hand, or to tell him that he loves him again, but it's not right, not when Arnold is like this.

It's the loneliest Robert's felt in months.

\- - - 

Arnold spends most of his days now either at the lab or at the hospital.

Robert approaches him when he sees the blonde hair shipped into Arnold's office. 

"I take it this is for Dolores?" Robert says, standing with the box it'd come packaged in. It was ready to be sewn into a scalp, one Robert hadn't seen yet. "What is she for, Arnold?"

Arnold says nothing for a moment, fingers hovering over the metal frame laid out on the table. He doesn't look at Robert when he finally speaks. "What I've been telling you for months, Robert."

Robert exhales, places the box down on the ground before making his way towards Arnold. The sight of the metal frame before the both of them fills Robert with a sense of mild anger. He hadn't listened to him.

"I told you that was irresponsible, Arnold," he would take a hammer and smash Dolores to pieces if he could, but he can't make Arnold do anything. His voice is stern, like a headmaster telling off a student. "You cannot create sentient hosts. Besides the PR disaster it would cause, there's the morality of it all."

"Forgive me, Robert, but when the fuck have you cared about morality?" Arnold's voice rises through the air, and Robert recoils at the sound of it.

Arnold turns slowly to look up at him, and Robert's jaw is squared out as he mulls over Arnold's reaction. 

Robert looks as if he may explode, yell at Arnold about how unfair it was to call him immoral when he was the one who decided to get married and have a child after everything they'd been through together.

He's too furious to do that, emotions getting the better of him. So instead of that, he spits out a _"fuck off, Arnold,'_ and storms out of the office.

Arnold stares at the door for a while after Robert's left, but he returns to Dolores soon enough.

She's going to be there whether Robert liked it or not.

\- - -

Charlie dies a few weeks later and the last part of Arnold's soul dies with him.

He sobs for what feels like days, sitting in his lab with Charlie's teddy bear clasped in his fingers. 

Robert sends flowers to Lauren, tells her that he'll make whatever arranges she wanted for the funeral. It's something, a gesture for what Arnold had provided him following his own father's death.

Robert finds Arnold, sat against the metal table that a near-complete Dolores is laid out upon. He doesn't draw attention to her, just takes a seat on the floor besides him and sits in silence.

It's been weeks since they'd exchanged more than a few sentences.

Robert's hand finds Arnold's eventually, their fingers sliding together, folded atop Arnold's knee.

When Robert squeezes his fingers, Arnold squeezes them back.

Arnold doesn't take his eyes off the floor when Robert presses a soft kiss to his cheek, lips brushing over the beard he hasn't trimmed in weeks. 

He does, however, mumble a gentle ' _thank you,_ ' and that's enough.

\- - - 

The park is starting to open to special guests, beta testers of the world.

Arnold isn't much involved, grief too overwhelming.

He concentrates on Dolores.

He'd told Robert, lips pressed to his bare back as they laid in Robert's bed. He'd lied and told him that he wasn't interested in making her sentient anymore. He couldn't figure it out. His pyramid had failed and he couldn't find something new.

Robert doesn't quite believe him, but he tells him that it's the right thing to do. 

He can feel the sadness every time Arnold kisses him.

\- - - 

It shouldn't come as a surprise.

They hadn't had much of a physical relationship to speak of for months.

It's understandable, the grief had been too much for Arnold. 

It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt Robert's somewhat.

He'd been lying again, taking Dolores out of her narrative and having these secret conversations with her. Robert hand't known about them, of course. They happened in the section under the park that was rarely used these days, below the little church in the village. He feels somewhat guilty about their meetings, hiding them from Robert, but no matter what Arnold would tell him, Robert would never understand.

Arnold shows him the first sign of genuine affection for a while, two days before _it_ happens. 

It's a boringly mundane day, the few guests they had had made a small complaint, and Robert had discussed it with Doctor Anderson in his office.

Teddy, Dolores' love interest, had been acting frequently more violent.

Robert had figured out that it was maybe because of Arnold, but he tells Anderson that it's a simple glitch and that he'll make sure to fix it.

She takes his word for it, smiling as she leaves, moving by Arnold, who closes the door behind her and himself as he enters.

Robert opens his mouth to speak, to let Arnold know that he was done with this, the secrecy of it all. He knew he had something planned, and Robert was ready to get him to explain himself.

But then Arnold smiles at him for the first time since Charlie had passed and it renders Robert silent, stunned.

He takes Robert's face in his hands and kisses him with the same amount of feeling that he'd done before, back in the basement of Robert's host house following his divorce, and those times before it.

Robert doesn't know how to respond at first, hands hovering at Arnold's sides, but then they're settling on his hips, drawing him close.

Arnold is still smiling when he pulls away, and his eyes aren't distant or empty when he looks down at him. " _I love you._ " 

The words are truthful, Robert can tell. He can't, however, help the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, like the feeling of seeing a sky before the storm.

Robert smiles, regardless. "I love you, too."

\- - - 

They say it was an accident.

Robert knows that's a lie.

Arnold was so very careful, so methodical. 

He'd wanted this. 

He'd wanted to be with his son, his grief too much to bear.

Arnold was dead, and Robert hadn't been able to stop it.

\- - -

Robert cries harder than he did when his mother died. Harder than his brother and his father combined. 

He tears up his office, yells at his silent employees who filter out of whatever room he happens to storm through.

There's broken glass and paper everywhere, and Robert crumples alongside it, sobs wrecking his heaving chest. 

The notes that scatter around him are Arnold's, sketches and words, philosophies and theories that Robert wants to tear to shreds and set alight. 

He didn't want any reminder of the madness that had consumed Arnold, had made him put that gun in Dolores' hands.

It's only when his sobs have quietened, when Robert is clutching torn and crumpled paper, that he sees it.

Drawn in the center of a page, lines leading to an inner circle.

The maze.

With bleary eyes, Robert reads over every word, every inch of Arnold's handwriting scribbled into the page.

He has to find it.

\- - - 

It was made for her, for the rest of them. 

He doesn't quite grasp it at first, until he journeys out to the place where it's buried, in Dolores' grave besides the now burnt down church.

He digs it up, bare hands pressing into the soil and dirt.

Lifting the lid, Robert recalls it from a brief visit at the hospital during Charlie's sickness. 

A puzzle. A journey, not an upwards climb, but spiraling inwards. 

Robert finally understands.

\- - -

"How long were you having an affair?" Lauren smiles from behind her coffee, tired eyes blinking slowly at the man sat before her.

She's been so tired for so long, but there'd always been a spirit within her that allowed her to barrel on, one that had been all too apparent following Charlie's death.

They're sat in an empty saloon in the park, at a wooden table with rickety legs. (Arnold had wanted that, for authenticity of course.)

Robert's eyes are rimmed red, heavy as he lifts them to meet her gaze. Not many could render him surprised besides Arnold, but her question is like a bolt through his core. 

How foolish he was, not to realise that perhaps Arnold's ex-wife wasn't as uninformed as she appeared.

"It started before he met you," Robert doesn't see the point in lying. Not now, not when a part of him feels as though it's been torn from his being. "We never slept together during your relationship. We kissed once, a few weeks before your wedding."

Robert doesn't look away from Lauren, despite the tears brimming in his eyes. She doesn't appear angry, nor particularly sad about the situation. She just appears... tired, the same bittersweet smile on her features.

"I told him I loved him," Robert's voice cracks a little and he clears his throat. His eyes slide shut momentarily, and there's a large part of him that wants to scream, tip the table over and tell Lauren that she was nothing but a distraction to Arnold, make her feel as broken and grief stricken as he does.

But there's no point. It isn't her fault that Arnold is gone.

"He told you he loved you too, didn't he?" Lauren sighs, eyes casting down towards the dregs of her coffee. She chuckles, a warm tone underlying with melancholy. "I could tell. He was always so concerned about you. I suppose I was suspicious back when he made you those hosts of your family, but I ignored it. I pretended not to see something that was so clearly there. Silly, really."

Robert doesn't say anything.

"I'm glad," Lauren continues, chin lifting to meet Robert's eyes again. The tear that drips down her cheek mirrors Robert's, though she's still smiling. "I'm glad he shared something so authentic with someone, even when he was losing himself. You were good to him. I deserved something better, perhaps not someone, but something shared with someone. I don't know if I'm making much sense, but I'm not angry. I'm hurt, of course, but I don't resent you. I don't resent him."

Robert understands. 

Standing up, Lauren walks around the table and places a hand on Robert's shoulder. It's stiff, awkward, but any interaction between the two would be now, even after a heart-to-heart. "Goodbye, Robert. I do hope you can heal from this. Arnold would want you to carry on with your work. It meant so much to him."

Robert nods, silent as Lauren walks away.

\- - - 

The park is re-opened. 

It's business as usual for the first few months.

The board wipes every spec of Arnold's existence from the database. They destroy every photograph besides one, one that Robert keeps tucked away in his desk in a locked drawer.

Robert finds Dolores, sits her down in her classic blue dress, and brings her online.

"Hello, Dolores," he greets her, unable to hide the bitterness in his voice as she smiles at him, blank eyed and oblivious. He exhales sharply, eyes closing. He can still see Arnold when he closes his eyes, when he sleeps, laid out on the ground, blood pooling from the back of his skull, fragments on the sand.

Robert had been so angry, so confused, so filled with grief.

But he understands now. He understands what Arnold had been trying to tell him.

Robert's eyes are darker when he opens them again and looks at Dolores. The smile that quirks on his lips makes her eyes shift to slight concern, confusion at his intentions. He takes her hand between his own, a reassuring gesture. "It's quite alright, Dolores. We're going to finish what Arnold started."

**Author's Note:**

> Finally finished this after what feels like ten thousand years. I know some of the dialogue is a bit pretentious, but I wanted it to fit the style of the characters. (Let be real, Robert is Dramatic™) Although I'll never be able to be as talented as the Westworld writers, of course! 
> 
> The time period is something over the course of seven or eight years when Robert was in his thirties, although I'm not sure how long it actually was in canon for the park to be built, so don't drag me for it, lol. I tried. Also, I hope my characterisation of Lauren was in a positive light. We didn't know much if anything about her, but I didn't want to make her into a victim or a Bitter Scourned Wife. Also, I imagine Doctor Anderson as being played by Jodie Foster at the age she is now, but that's just a little tidbit.
> 
> Title is from an Emily Haines song because I'm terrible at coming up with titles.


End file.
